YOUTUBE THROUGH THE AGES. There's an interesting piece by Sam Howe Verhovek in today's L.A. Times about trackers, those (typically young) campaign staffers tasked with carrying audio or audio-visual equipment to their opponents' public events and taping their every utterance. Their goal is simple: Trail after opponents in hopes of catching them saying something contradictory, stupid or malicious -- or trifecta: all three! S.R. Sidarth stands as America's most famous tracker, at least for the moment. But he's certainly not alone.
Thinking about trackers made me wonder how history might have turned out in the days before electronic media if, instead, there had been YouTube and videocameras. In 1860, for example (as Richard Hofstadter noted in his classic book, The American Political Tradition), Abraham Lincoln's speeches in pro-slavery parts of the country would have been easily and perhaps fatally contrasted with sentiments he expressed in abolitionist regions.
Presumably, a television-era Lincoln would have been more judicious in his language. Still, it would have been fun to watch Honest Abe explain the discrepancies to Tim Russert on Sunday.
--Tom Schaller
